The charmless Hello Kitty Charmming Eyeshadow Stick

Monday, September 23, 2013

I've just encountered the worst beauty product I've ever had the misfortune to try. It was so, sooo bad that I actually returned it - something I NEVER do. I was so shocked by its piece-of-sh*tness that I felt I had to share! So here's how the story begins: I was making an order on sephora.com, and before checking out, as usual, I took a quick look at the Sales section. There, I found the cute Hello Kitty Charmming Eyeshadow Stick for only $5, and the reviews were pretty good (that's the part that blows my mind the most). I decided to pick up Kimono, a navy shade with shimmer. A few days later, the order arrived and I was all joy! That didn't last too long...

Before I start the actual review, let me give you some valuable background info: I love shadow sticks/pencils because they're so easy to use, and I've owned and tried a lot of them, from a variety of brands. I've come across pretty bad ones, but nothing as nasty as this "Charmming" catastrophe.

I received this twist-up pencil with a safety seal on, so no, its terrible performance is not due to it being forgotten open under a heater or accidentally dipped in concrete: it's just how it is. After I broke the plastic seal and opened the cap, the whole stick came out of the pencil body. No warning. I put it back in, but it kept moving in there, not wanting to come up or getting deeper in for no reason (you can see me fighting with it in the small video). Packaging boo boo. But that's nothing compared to its texture from hell...

This thing is so dry that even swiping hard on your skin does not leave any color. You have to RUB with a lot of pressure, back and forth multiple times, to see just a tiny bit of ashy, sheer color on your skin. This is annoying when trying to swatch on your arm, but believe me, it HURTS when you're trying to do this on your lids! I did try to apply it on my eyes. It was seriously painful as I had to rub, rub, and rub more. Even then, the color payoff was ridiculously bad, and the little color I was able to get was terribly uneven. I guess the stick scratched my sensitive lids badly because it remained sore all day. After a couple of hours, everything (not much in fact) was entirely gone. But my lids were still painful from the application torture... Here's a little video showing you what I had to do to get a swatch on my arm (meet kitty in the end!):

Overall: this thing is a joke, and a very bad one! Not only is its performance abysmal, with NO color payoff whatsoever, but it also hurts when you try to apply it. Stay far, far away from this total failure if you don't want to have sore eyelids!The product featured in this review was purchased by Lulle. I recieved no compensation to write this post, which only reflects my personal opinion. This post contains affiliate links.

Bonjour!

Lulle, 30-something, I was born and lived most of my life in France. I also spent 5 years in Istanbul, Turkey, and now reside in San Diego, California. I have a cat, Ernesto, a little rascal who traveled with me from one country to another.

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